#family-dynamics

#family-dynamics

"I am so blown away by the outpouring of love and support from our community," "There aren't words to express our gratitude. You are truly holding us up during this difficult time."

As the youngest of four, my daughter probably hasn't known a totally peaceful day since she arrived home from the hospital. She was the travel baby - waking up in her infant seat to discover she'd been carted to a school play, T-ball practice, or school pickup. She had built-in playmates right from the start, though, of course, they bickered and fought like any other siblings.

This didn't come as a surprise, because as a teenager, I remember it exactly this way. Living parallel lives together as sisters. It was only ever the two of us, and with our ages so close together - I'm not even two years older - you might think we were inseparable. It just wasn't how it was. We were so different We were night and day different then.

Have you ever noticed how certain family gatherings seem to revolve around managing one person's moods or reactions? Maybe it's the sibling whose temper dictates whether dinner stays peaceful, or the relative everyone tiptoes around to avoid triggering an outburst. We've all witnessed these dynamics, but here's the uncomfortable question: what if that person is you? Growing up after my parents' divorce, I became fascinated with family dynamics and the roles we unconsciously adopt.

Between the two of us, we smoke one joint after 7 p.m. about four days a week. We also enjoy it on special occasions like holidays and birthdays. Lately, when our adult child has been over to visit and we step away to share a joint, they'll comment, I thought you only smoked on certain days or something to that effect. I feel like they're keeping tabs on us, or even judging us by saying OK in a disapproving way.

You know what families always say about estranged relatives? "They changed." "They got selfish." "They think they're better than us now." But after years of watching this pattern play out, reading psychology texts on family dynamics, and yes, living through my own complicated family relationships, I've noticed something different. The people who end up distancing themselves from their families often share remarkably similar experiences and traits that have nothing to do with what their families believe.

She will leave notes on our bedroom door about how "loud" we are being or announce in public when my boyfriend and I are being intimate and how "gross and disgusting" it is. She will say this like she asked someone to pass the milk and seems pleased how embarrassed everyone gets. Her grandparents refuse to address this behavior and her grandmother even scolded me that we need to "keep it down."

That same night, he texted me and asked if he could see me again at the end of the week. He sent a restaurant and a time and asked if that was OK with my taste and schedule. I agreed. Over the next few days, he texted and called me, and we had good conversations. It all felt so intentional.

My sister-in-law "Jane" is the divorced mom of a 7-year-old son, "Derek," and a 5-year-old daughter, "Talia." Child care is insanely expensive in our area, and reliable sitters are rare. Because I work from home, I offered to watch Jane's kids after they get out of school while she's at work. It seemed like the perfect solution at first. Dear Used, Within the past few months, however, my SIL has been increasingly late in picking up Derek and Talia.

Madeline Cash's debut novel, Lost Lambs, tells the story of a modern American family: semi-estranged parents in an ill-fated open relationship and three teen daughters with internet boyfriends and dangerous connections to the tech billionaire up the road. The book made such a splash when it was published last month - "vivid, breezy prose alight with casual wit," said the New Yorker; "the comic novel we need right now," declared the Washington Post -

Should I let this go? THROWN IN OREGON DEAR THROWN: Yes, let it go. Your children are adults and have their own priorities. You can't control them, nor should you try. I'm sorry your friend is upset, but your children are not responsible for it. The kids are not as close as she assumed they were, and she is going to have to learn to accept that.

My parents were not a love match. My dad was at the very least not straight. They got married because they got pregnant, and it was like, my dad came from a Catholic family.

We met on Tinder when I was 30. I was 33 when I got divorced. Very, very quickly, we absolutely adored each other.

Looking for work to do. Not like a job, but my parents and older family all complain constantly they have no free time. But all they do is make themselves work. Cut down some trees, rearrange the entire house, dig up the yard. Just always making themselves work.

At its core, premarital counseling is meant to prepare you and your partner for all the challenges that will test your commitment to one another. It's important to explore topics such as finances, family size, and how to manage in-laws before marriage, but we also need to recognize that the plan decided before marriage may not always apply in 5, 10, or 20 years. Premarital counseling can potentially teach you how to communicate effectively and what you need to discuss.

Growing up, Melissa Shultz sometimes felt like she had two fathers. One version of her dad, she told me, was playful and quick to laugh. He was a compelling storyteller who helped shape her career as a writer, and he gave great bear hugs. He often bought her small gifts: a pink "princess" phone when she was a teen, toys for her sons when she became a mom.

We bought a house in a trendy area near the city centre, and our home has become like a party base for the girls at the weekends. One has just become engaged and our kitchen is like a Pentagon conference room most Sundays. The table is filled with charts and brochures, and there's constant chat about the logistics of overseas guests and the politics of who is invited and who isn't.

"Turns out, Steve's brother...Tony, also went to the same college as I did, and in a similar department," X writes. "Steve then jokingly asked if I've ever met Tony or hooked up with him, to which I said honestly, \"probably not, since it's a big school\" and brushed it off since his name and description didn't ring a bell."

My husband Edwin comes from a big Colombian family, which is very different from the kind of environment I grew up in, and it leads to conflict between us. I had one sibling, a brother, but he passed away in a car accident when I was nine. My mum died a couple years ago. I grew up quite detached from my parents and was never that close to my father. As a result, I'm very independent and I like my own space.

Profile Theatre's Tiger Style is the best bargain to be found right now in Portland theater. You buy a ticket to a comedy and get-as a free bonus-a dazzling array of vignettes dissecting Asian American education, life, relationships, and myths. It's giving a side eye to corporate life, showing how families break up and make up, and offering biting examples of Communist Party of China (CPC) politics. Such a deal!

The server you mentioned may need tips to survive on her sub-minimum or minimum wage income. However, a tip should never be requested, and for a server to follow your niece out of a restaurant to discuss a small tip is beyond the pale. Although some establishments suggest tips that can go as high as 35%, most customers give 15% or 20% of the total bill.

Just four months after the shocking news broke that Kidman and Urban were ending a 19-year-old marriage that was long believed to be one of Hollywood's most stable, the 58-year-old Urban has been linked to Karley Scott Collins, who is 32 years his junior and just nine years older than his oldest daughter, Sunday Rose, 17. The Daily Mail reported this week that the Australian country star is rumored to have moved on

Oh, my. It seems like who goes around comes around. It's a shame that you can't leave the past a one-night stand more than 37 years ago in the past and find the humor in this. I suspect it happens more often than you think. Please quit regarding this as a competition between you and your brother-in-law's girlfriend. Your husband chose you. End of contest. If there is cause for embarrassment, it should be hers, not yours.

He doesn't lower his voice when he asks, and then he argues about tipping the typical 20%. It was so embarrassing when we took his nephews out to dinner that one of them asked if he could leave the tip instead. When we took my son and daughter-in-law out to celebrate a milestone birthday, my husband made sure to let them know how expensive the dinner was.

"If one partner protects their creativity and rest and ambition or joy because the other partner is holding the system together, that joy is being heavily subsidized," she explains. "Not by money, but by someone else's nervous system."

I'd gently suggest that you're not helpless against the changing tide. You've noticed a pattern that seems to be in conflict with your hopes and expectations for the holiday. So, for next year, you have the opportunity to talk about it with your daughters in advance and find a solution that makes everyone happy. Every holiday meal is, of course, about the food, but its primary purpose is togetherness as a family.

It starts at the front door when your parents pummel you with questions. Before you can even get your coat off, they also ask you to sort through an old bag of clothes from high school, and the next morning, you wake up from the slam of the vacuum cleaner against your bedroom door at 6 a.m. To put it bluntly: Being home is overwhelming.

Sibling estrangement is not just about not talking to your brother or sister. It has much broader ramifications, as sibling rejection can profoundly shape an individual's personality and their roles in the family. The estranged may lose the opportunity to be a sibling, in-law, aunt or uncle, and even son or daughter, as estrangement often metastasizes and family members choose sides. These shifting alliances may contribute to greater alienation.

When you're the one who organizes the family vacation, calls the plumber for your parents, and coordinates every Mother's Day gift, it's easy to feel resentful that nobody else is stepping up to help. Often, the eldest daughter is the one who notices-and in noticing, begins to believe she's responsible. Family researchers have long described this as intergenerational vigilance (Miller-Ott et al., 2017), a sense of watchfulness passed down through gendered expectations.

I go into Christmas every year with low expectations for my husband's side of the family. They are notoriously bad gift givers, so I just go into it with the knowledge that the gifts don't matter, it's about our time together as a family.

We had taken every precaution we could to avoid it. I have MS, which can react in unpredictable ways to viral exposures. My husband knows this very well, which is why I'm perplexed and furious that he thought it better to stay on the good side of our son by not allowing me to decide for myself whether I wanted to walk into a potentially deadly situation.

No visit home for the holidays is complete without at least a few annoying or insensitive comments from your extended family. Often, your family means well when they inquire - yet again! - about your relationship status, your body, your baby plans or what is (or isn't) on your plate or in your glass. Or perhaps they're oblivious to how inappropriate these remarks can be. But that doesn't change the fact that it's exhausting to deal with these same comments year after year.